Russia to collect more feed wheat due to grain quality

Russia's 2013 wheat crop is expected to rise by a third to around 50 million tonnes, of which 43 million tonnes have already been harvested from 66% of the sown area, with yields at 2.60 tonnes per hectare, up from 1.85 last year, reported Russian Ministry of Agriculture.

This year the harvest is seriously delayed. For instance, Siberia has harvested 1.8 million tonnes from 18% of the sown area. At the same time last year, more than 60% of the area was finished, said the report.

At the same time this year Russia will suffer the lack of high-quality wheat, which could undermine their plans to increase exports but at the same time will increase the volume of feed wheat in the domestic market.

According to forecasts Russia's crop of third class wheat may fall to 14 million tonnes from 19 million tonnes last year, Russian analysts predict. The fourth class the lowest quality grade of wheat according to the forecasts to be up 80% to 20 million tonnes. This wheat is usually going to animal feed purposes, noted Russian analysts.